


Getting to Know You

by What_we_are



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Christmas Presents, F/M, Jesse's POV, arts and crafts, brief reference to hypothetical violence against a child, compound fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22223773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_we_are/pseuds/What_we_are
Summary: How Todd made his first snow globe as a Christmas present for Lydia, and what happened when he gave it to her.
Relationships: Todd Alquist & Jesse Pinkman, Todd Alquist/Lydia Rodarte-Quayle
Comments: 15
Kudos: 17
Collections: Blue Christmeth Madness 2019





	Getting to Know You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Porkchop_Sandwiches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/gifts).



1.

“Thanks for listening. I know I go on about Miss Lydia a lot. I just think she’s so special,” Todd said.

Jesse pulled on the chain running from his waist to the metal frame overhead. He added the shredded aluminum to the batch. He replaced the bucket using his left hand because the right still felt broken, or at least sprained.

Todd went on, “She’s just not like other women. And it’s not just that she’s classy. She’s like a ballerina, the way she moves.”

Jesse knew things went easier when he interacted with Todd. 

“Graceful,” he mumbled, looking down. He couldn’t stand to look at Todd’s face, or any of their faces. 

“What’s that?”

“Graceful.”

Todd considered it for a moment.

Jesse wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. His body tensed. 

Todd was still in a friendly mood. “I think ‘graceful’ is a good word for her. I mean she always moves in an elegant way, even when she’s walking on dirt with her high heal shoes. I had to hold her steady this one time when we went out to Declan’s place and she wanted to cover her eyes. I was like her seeing eye dog.”

Jesse had heard this story often. He didn’t keep track of the days, but he estimated that Todd told him about it once a week. 

Jesse looked at the clock on the wall. There was nothing to do for the cook for several hours. 

Todd said, “You want to go rest in your room or do you want to sit up here?”

Jesse’s beard and head itched like a son of a bitch. He was sweating through his tattered clothes. He spoke more clearly than he had before, “Up here.”

“Cool. I got an idea to run past you. I know it’s early to be planning, but I was thinking about what to get Lydia for a Christmas present. I could afford lots of things now, but so could she, so I was thinking sentimental was the way to go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know you didn’t have sisters growing up, but have you ever seen one of those jewelry boxes with a ballerina inside and the ballerina spins around and it plays music?”

Jesse nodded without raising his head. 

“Well I was thinking of something like that. Not exactly that, but . . . I don’t know. I could have one made to look like her and put it in a jewelry box with some special song – not too forward, not a love song. I still have to think about it.”

Todd took drink of his Powerade. 

It was a hot day.

2.

Jesse was sleeping and crying. It was dangerous to cry above ground, so he did it at night. 

There was a light above the tarp all of the sudden.

Todd’s voice was low, “Hey Jesse, you awake?”

Jesse quickly dried his eyes and cleared his throat. “Yeah”

“I’m gonna lower something down okay?”

Todd pushed a little of the tarp aside and lowered a clothes pin on a piece of twine. 

The clothes pin came down within reach, but it seemed empty.

“I can’t see anything,” Jesse said. 

Todd tried to shine the flashlight on it, but he was too far away. He moved more of the tarp and got the ladder, so he could come down.

Jesse held on to the twine and clothes pin, while Todd climbed down. 

Todd shined the light on it. Jesse had been expecting a cigarette at best, and a child’s finger at worst. 

Todd slapped him on the back, “It’s you! I made you out of this clay stuff.” Todd went on as if Jesse had expressed interest. “Yeah, nerds sculpt little warriors and dragons and things and then they paint them and play games or have wars or I don’t know, but I got some at the hobby shop and made you as practice. The hobby shop man was nice. He makes them for his train set. He’s got a train set, at this same scale, as big as your room here.”

The figure was smaller than Jesse’s finger. It had grey pants and a grey shirt with black sleeves. Todd had even painted the buttons on the shirt. The strange thing about it was the longish hair and messy beard. If the hobby shop guy saw it, he probably thought it was a hobo for a historical train set scene. 

Jesse held it for a minute while Todd kept the light on it.

Todd was waiting for praise.

“This is good,” Jesse said.

“I know right?”

3.

Jesse was standing in the lab waiting for the temperature of the chemicals to rise.

Todd walked in with a small box. “I made something”

Jesse dared to hope it was food.

“You know how we were talking about what I’m gonna give Lydia for Christmas? I’ve been thinking more about it and I just think a jewelry box is too immature and so I had this great idea: what about a snow globe? It’s classy and it’s Christmassy. So, what do you think?

“You wanna make a snow globe with a ballerina inside?”

“No, with me and Lydia inside.”

“Like on the top of a wedding cake?”

“No, Jesse.” Todd sounded a little irritated, which was dangerous. “Not like on a wedding cake, obviously. I’ll show you, but you can’t tell Uncle Jack and the guys.” 

Todd opened the box and took the tissue paper from around the figurines. “See? I put her sitting on a cup of tea because she likes tea, and I put me standing next to her.”

“Yeah, she loves tea,” Jesse mumbled. This was the weirdest shit he’d ever seen. “So you’re gonna put it in a glass globe with floating snow?”

“That’s the idea.”

“The hobby shop guy knows a mail order place for kits. I already put my order in. Did you know it’s not just water in there? They add glycerin to make the snow go down more slowly. I thought that-- being a science guy-- that might interest you. And they can set it to play almost any song. I picked 'Getting to Know You' from 'The King and I.' I mean the lyrics are perfect. Todd looked around behind him to check for the guys and sang:

Getting to know you  
Getting to know all about you  
Getting to like you  
Getting to hope you like me  
Getting to know you  
Putting it my way  
But nicely  
You are precisely  
My cup of tea

“Isn’t that perfect!? It’s not a love song, but it’s friendly and it even mentions tea.”

4.

Todd came down to Jesse’s pit with the same box he'd had before. He got out the finished snow globe. There was some snow in it but mostly red confetti hearts that matched the bottoms of Lydia’s heal shoes. Todd’s clothes were the most detailed part. Lydia’s face was a little indistinct, but he got the shade of blue on her clothes just right. 

“What do you think?” Todd asked. “You’ve met her.” 

“Yeah. It looks like her.”

Todd smiled. “I think I’ve really captured her likeness.”

5.

For a week after his meeting with Lydia, Todd did not mention the snow globe, so Jesse assumed it’d gone badly. 

One day Todd was in a good mood. “The guys are out for a while. You want some cocoa? Uncle Jack doesn’t like me sharing food and stuff with you too much, but you’ve been doing really good cooks and it’s Christmas.”

“Today?”

Todd looked at Jesse like he was stupid. “Yeah.”

Todd opened the thermos and steam rose from it. The lab was as cold as it had ever been. 

“I got this big multi pack of cocoa packets and the guys hate the Mexican one, but I figured, with your history, maybe you’d like it. It’s got spices in it that make it Mexican.” 

Todd poured Jesse a big mugful. Jesse held the mug with two hands, terrified that ‘the guys’ would come back and take it away. It wasn’t too hot, so he drank it fast. It tasted like chocolate with a hint of cinnamon and chili powder. 

“So we haven’t really had a chance to talk,” Todd started, “but the gift thing did not go well. Lydia barely even looked at the snow globe and she said she had a plane to catch.”

Jesse had drunk all his cocoa and set the empty cup down as a hint that he’d like more. “Is that all she said?”

“Well, she was polite. She said something like she didn’t think business associates should exchange gifts. I told her I made it from scratch and she said she had a plane to catch. That’s how it happened. So what do you think? You have experience with women.”

Jesse wished he was in the cold pit by himself instead of having this conversation. “I don’t know. It sounds like she didn’t schedule much time for the hand off.”

“Yeah, but she could have taken it with her.” Todd looked sad. “She didn’t even listen to the song.”


End file.
